CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The Yale women's basketball team erupted for 42 points in the second half and held Harvard to its second-lowest point total in the last eight games Saturday evening at Lavietes Pavilion, but the Crimson still mustered enough offense to claim a 65-59 win over the Bulldogs. Yale led 25-24 in the third before an 11-3 Harvard run that proved pivotal. The loss drops the Bulldogs into a tie for third with the Crimson in the Ivy League standings.
Yale (13-8, 6-3 Ivy League) was coming off a dominant defensive performance, having beaten Dartmouth 48-33 Friday night in Hanover. Harvard (12-9, 6-3 Ivy League) had been tested by Brown before pulling out a 77-73 win. Offense was tough to come by for both teams in the opening quarter, with Yale taking a 10-6 lead into the second. The Bulldogs limited the Crimson to a 2-for-11 shooting performance in the first, including 0-for-7 on three-point attempts.
Harvard heated up in the second, outscoring Yale 17-7 to take a 23-17 lead into halftime. The Bulldogs answered with an 8-1 run at the start of the third, including three pointers from sophomore guards
Klara Astrom and
Jenna Clark and a jumper by junior forward
Camilla Emsbo. But the Crimson re-took the lead just 22 seconds after Yale went ahead, and soon built that lead up to as many as nine.
An and-one by Astrom helped Yale get within five late in the third quarter, but in the fourth the Bulldogs got no closer than six – and that was with only 79 seconds left, after a three-pointer by first-year guard
Avery Lee. Harvard guard Harmoni Turner answered that with a three of her own – part of a 25 point night for her – to help seal the win.
"We were happy with our defensive performance in the first half," said
Allison Guth, Yale's Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women's Basketball. "In the second half we stepped up and amplified our offense."
Emsbo, who on Friday became the 23rd Yale player to score 1,000 career points, led the Bulldogs with 17 points and added 11 rebounds for her 11th double-double of the season. Astrom added 14 points, while Clark had nine points and five assists. Senior forward
Alex Cade had a game-high 13 rebounds, helping the Bulldogs to a 53-33 advantage on the boards. Lee (eight points, four rebounds) and first-year guard/forward
Mackenzie Egger (seven points) delivered some key contributions off the bench.
Yale and Harvard are now both a game and a half behind second-place Columbia in the Ivy League standings. The Lions, who fell to 7-1 in league play with a loss to 8-0 Princeton Saturday, visit Lee Amphitheater next Saturday at 2:00 p.m.
